1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a clinical analyzer suitably used for clinical inspection, or more in particular to a clinical analyzer for continually measuring the items of analysis contained in a living body fluid by discrete process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typical analyzers to which the present invention is applicable include those in which a plurality of samples are transferred from sample containers to another type of liquid containers, and after being subjected to a chemical reaction, measured in the containers or moved together with the containers to another position for measurement, and those in which the samples are measured without special reaction. For convenience's sake, the analyzer of the latter type will be explained below.
In an automatic analyzer, a multiplicity of samples are usually arranged so that components to be inspected are measured continually. Considerable length of time is required before the prearranged samples are all completely measured. Nonetheless, the inspection laboratory of hospitals or like is often required to conduct an emergency inspection of a patient's blood for urgent necessity of operation or like. This is especially the case with ion components of such elements as sodium, potassium, calcium and chlorine. Therefore, a function to enable emergency measurement by interruption in the process of ordinary measurement of samples on the automatic analyzer will greatly reduced the complexity which otherwise might be encountered in the inspection work.
The conventional automatic analyzers, however, are such that even an emergency sample is also required to be set ordinarily in the sample transfer system for transfer to the component detecting position, and therefore are not suitable for emergency inspection.